Brian Hare, an anthropologist at Duke University, recently proposed the idea that bonobos are in fact domesticated versions of chimpanzees. While we associate the word "domestication" with humans acting to tame animals, Hare's idea involves proto-bonobos domesticating themselves.

His basic idea rests upon differences between bonobos and their closest living relative, the chimp. They both descended from a common ancestor until the forming Congo River split its population. Isolated by their...